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What is the purest form?
Chemistry sets forth the axiom that elements are the purest form of matter. Single atoms are no longer divisible into smaller forms and they are what makes up the foundation for all physical structures. These purest forms exist all around us and not just at an atomic level. Elements are the building blocks of the world around us and in a similar fashion, computers breakdown information into their purest form, the bit. In Novacene, James Lovelock notes '“The basic unit of information is the bit, which can have a value of zero or one, as in true or false, on or off, yes or no… the tiniest thing from which all else is constructed from.” First principles thinking applies this same logic to an assumption, proposing a method of ideation by looking for the proposition that cannot be deduced to any simpler form.
Our ability to explain something in the purest form allows us to organize the complexities of the world into art, technology and the innovations that shape our reality. The purest form I am discussing here is writing and it’s importance has been echoed for thousands of years, however, I felt this idea should be rehashed as a result of the recent cross pollination of writing and blockchain tech through platforms like Mirror, Arweave, etc. We now embark on a new landscape of the written format; one which is trustless, verifiable and immutable.
The things we create are the effect of one’s ability to take an idea expressed in the purest form (writing) and build on top of it. Vitalik Buterin wrote Ethereum’s whitepaper in 2013. Its written form later became the largest decentralized smart contract, open source blockchain in the world. Without its purest form in writing, Ethereum is just an idea with no community of devs or users to create it and build on top of it. A movie in its purest form is just a screenplay and without it there is no use for a director, camera operator, editor or sound engineer. The purest form of any technology, innovation and art is its written form. This purest form contains a few important characteristics:
It is the simplest and most divided form of the executed idea
It is tangible (more on this later)
It originates from a single person or small group into a written form
And it requires the minimal amount of resources. One person and a pencil for the idea and hundreds to execute it later
Why Writing?
Why is writing the purest form and not be the idea? Or in that case, the thought that inspired the idea? One could argue that an idea is the purest form, however, I believe an idea doesn’t exist until it is written, recorded and turned into something that can be abstracted by others. Ideas are forgotten and lack structure to exist. Creations are built upon other peoples documented knowledge. Ideas require creation into a physical form before they can be brought into existence. Ideas are battlefields in your head while written words are the roots of trees sprouting in the ground.
W. G. Sebald wrote in his novel Rings of Saturn, “the chief difficulties of writing consisted in thinking, with the tip of the pen, solely of the word to be written, whilst vanishing from one’s mind the reality of what one intends to describe”.
Hundreds of people can read a plan and build off another writers idea, but only one was able to create the truly original idea. That one had to battle the pen or keyboard to articulate an idea. I am not saying this because it is the most profitable strategy or the best strategy, because I don’t believe this is the case at all. It can often be more lucrative to work or invest in someone’s idea in its purest form that being the one that creates it. (Think of the Winklevoss twins having an idea but Mark Zuckerberg being the only one of them who could execute). The people who build off another person’s purest form of an idea are the ones that allow progress to happen, as without them we exist in a world with a bunch of ideas on paper.
Why then do I argue writing is the purest form and is this purest form even important, or is it just meant to sound poetic? Ignoring the profits from ideas and stories, reading and writing does something else, it allows for new perspectives to foster while curiosity to expand horizons. Harry S. Truman famously said “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers”. I think it is worth noting that not all writers are innovators, but all innovators write. Cross pollination of ideas is most fruitful when perspectives come together. Reading and writing are the simplest tools to digest the world around you and connect things that exist throughout it. The new landscape of blockchain and writing allow for ideas to foster from people who don’t have the resources to create them while keeping immutable evidence of their creator. They allows networks, companies and now DAO’s to form from something as simple as a blog post on Mirror. Being able to turn ideas into words on paper connects you with the world. The more you learn and the better you can formulate ideas, the more your curiosity and open-mindedness grow alongside. Ideas at their purest form are written and once one can master the skill of formalizing ideas onto paper, one is truly free to create.
Thanks for reading
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